Follow-up: lesbian high schooler's promFollow

Skin is really gross, I agree.

Assumes regularity. What about those who are constantly constipated, like Bawney Fwank?

But don't forget, vaginas are the gross holes.

Gays don't ****

truefax.

Go study the civil rights movement. Closer. It had to do with changing social mores being reflected in changing laws (at all levels). The biggest gains in that movement were not courts deciding that existing laws today required a change in behavior, but that the behavior changed the laws, and the courts now had to apply them. It had far more to do with the people supporting legislative changes and then the fight to apply them than it did with court decisions.

The differences were also a hell of a lot more clear cut. It's pretty clear that legally barring people from going to certain hospitals, or attending certain schools, or doing business in certain shops based on physical criteria with no bearing on those segregated things is wrong. But even then, saying it's wrong wasn't enough. Passing laws defining said things as wrong was required. Because the process matters.

There's a difference between defining rules which affect actions and decisions, and defining rules which affect people because of who they are. She was not denied the ability to attend the prom. She was only denied the ability to attend the prom while wearing a tuxedo and bringing a female date. I just think we get ourselves onto dangerous ground when we shift from legally opposing restrictions on the person's characteristics (ie: gay people can't come to the prom), to restrictions on behaviors we associate with those characteristics (ie: No person may bring same-sex partner to the prom).

It's problematic from a legal perspective because you can claim any sort of behavior is associated to some label you've applied to yourself. So if black men are associated with gun violence, is it a violation of their civil rights for us to pass gun control laws (or perhaps stiffer penalties on crack cocaine)? I've mentioned the example of a nudist before. We might easily say that a law barring people who are members of a nudist colony from being able to vote would be a violation of their constitutional rights. However, does that mean that laws against public nudity are also a violation of their rights? Clearly, being nude is associated with being a nudist, and by requiring nudists to wear clothes while in a public place, and voting places are public places, you are infringing upon their right to vote, right? The fact that everyone else is required to wear clothes while voting isn't a legitimate counter because those people wouldn't want to be nude while expressing their right to vote anyway. It's unfair!


Seems like a silly thing to say, right? But how is that different than a lesbian claiming that by not being allowed to wear what she wants and bring whom she wants to the prom, that her rights as a lesbian are being violated? Same logic applies, right? She's not being barred for "being gay", but being barred from doing something she wants to do because she is gay.

That is not even remotely the same as barring someone because of who they are. There's an extra step in here, and I think we need to be aware of it when making decisions. Especially when we're pushing for broad changes.

Having said all of that, certainly if you want to pass a constitutional amendment that says that a public events or places cannot prohibit behavior or dress which is associated with a persons gender, race, religion, or sexual identity, then by all means go for it. But until such a constitutional amendment is passed, it's not a violation of the constitution for a local school to set their own rules with regard to their prom and we absolutely should not act as though it is.


It's about the process. Pass the laws you think should be in place first and then you can apply those laws. Unfortunately, it seems like too many people just want to take the short cut of having the courts rule that the law just says whatever they think it should without going through the pesky step of actually writing the law in the first place. IMO, that's not only wrong, but it's incredibly dangerous...



You work within the relatively smaller population of the community to change the rules? Barring that, you make the relatively minor move to a community which doesn't have rules you think are bad.

What do you do when the entire country has rules you consider to be "bad"? Whatever difficulties you encounter when your community has bad rules is nothing compared to that situation, right? If we're to choose which system to use, doesn't it make more sense to let the communities make their own rules for exactly this reason? The absolute worse case is that you have to move a county over maybe. Perhaps to the next state. How much of a hardship is that compared to moving to a new country?

Edited, Mar 26th 2010 5:59pm by gbaji

And? At one point slavery was legal. Can you imagine what would have happened if people insisted that since slavery was legal that all states had to adopt it? You're only strengthening my point here...



But they aren't in this case. They're only contrary to the way some people think the entire country should be. Show me where in the constitution is says that the right to wear what you want and bring whom you want to a school prom cannot be infringed? Can you do that?



Certainly. And the process for doing that is writing and passing a constitutional amendment which clearly states the thing or thing we believe is so important that all states must not violate it.

We did this during a whole long process of civil rights movements (not just "the" civil rights movement obviously). We did this to end voting restrictions for women and people of color. We did this to ensure fair hiring practices and representation. We did this to prevent discrimination on those basis. But there are two points on which your argument fails:

1. We passed those amendments with regard to sex, race, and religion, but have never passed any specific amendment with regard to sexual orientation (and there are some additional issues with that. See below).

2. The issue at hand is not one of "being", but one of "choosing". As I stated earlier, we get ourselves into potential problems when instead of simply opposing discrimination against someone based on who they are, we move past that to protecting choices people might make because of who they are.



There is no issue of rights here though. There really isn't. The dangerous precedent is labeling things as rights purely because it enables one group of people to impose their view of society on the rest of the country. Imagine if the south had succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to define owning slaves as a "right" which could not be infringed, thereby making unconstitutional any state laws which banned slavery within their borders.


The arguments being used in the case of this girl, while seeming to be much more minor, are of the same exact sort. It rests on the assumption that we can use the courts to decide if something is a right rather than the much more arduous (and representative!) legislative process. It further assumes that as long as the current thing is "popular" with the majority of people nationwide (or can be made to seem that way), that it's legitimate to impose that view on everyone else.

What is the virtue of that type of system? Our nation was created with the structure it has precisely to avoid an authoritarian "top down" form of government. We want to have different laws in different parts of the country, with the bare minimum of protections applied everywhere. And I'm sorry, but I think that protection against being barred from bringing the date you wanted to a prom is just not worth the horrific precedent being perpetuated by doing so.

We lose a lot more than we gain here.



We're also not talking about a state law either. This is one school district (and perhaps just this one school). In the grand scheme of things, is this restriction on the prom really that big of a deal? I don't think so. There are many other far more arbitrary seeming restrictions you're going to run into during your lifetime. Your HOA might not let you own a dog. The car you want to buy might not come with the options you'd like. The store near your house might stop selling your favorite brand of jam.

Life is full of things which aren't going to work out exactly as you'd like them to. We really shouldn't be running off to the federal government for a ruling every time that happens though. But somewhere along the line, many people have become convinced that it's perfectly acceptable to do so. And others foolishly cheer them on, not realizing that the only real effect you're causing is the reduction of your own liberty. Because for everyone who gains the "right" to do something they want, someone else loses the right to make their own rules in their own backyard (so to speak). And in the long run, it's the second right which is more important. As long as you retain that right, you can make your own way in life on your own terms. Once it's gone, you're completely at the whim of the government telling you what you may or may not do.


That's not freedom. That's not liberty. You may not be able to see it in this case, but it's not really this case which matters. It's the pattern of action and reaction which does. How we solve problems like this matters. The process matters...

Also, If you want to carry on the parody, please explain how jam is an equal rights issue. Because you being an *** aside, it doesn't really fit.

Edited, Mar 26th 2010 10:29pm by Xsarus

Sigh... In the case of racial and sexual discrimination, it was "handled" by a large enough percentage of the population feeling strongly enough about the issue to allow passage of a handful of constitutional amendments. That then gave the courts the legal standing to rule against a number of violations of those anti-discriminatory amendments and also led to further passage of additional federal laws based on said constitutional amendments and rulings on said amendments.

My point is that barring that sort of legislative action, then yes, the proper way to resolve the issue is locally. We have a process for bringing about legal changes which apply to the entire country. We really ought to use it properly.

Edited, Mar 26th 2010 8:41pm by gbaji

I think the real difference has something to do with Public schools and discrimination versus a private business and gbaji's wanna be "omg you are discriminating against me because you don't sell Smuckers!" discrimination.

Edited, Mar 26th 2010 11:49pm by TirithRR

Certainly. Rosa Parks could ride the bus, she just couldn't sit in certain sections and had to give up her seat if a white man wanted it. But she could ride the bus! Her behavior (ie, sitting in a certain seat) was restricted, not her characters (black people could ride buses!). Yeah. These restrictions are TOTALLY like unstocked jam.

(Analogies are fun and ridiculous, just like you!)

This is where your analogy fails.

Using your jam analogy, it's more like this: the store does stock your favorite jam. Let's say it's gooseberry, and it's a very popular item. But the store won't let YOU buy it because you're a filthy ****.